our breath."

"Thank you. Maybe the grounds are yours, now?" she questioned again.

The sick man signified they were by a slight nod.

"Well, 'tis the prettiest place hereabouts." Patsy offered the
information as if she had made the discovery herself and was
generously sharing it with him. "I'm a stranger; and when I saw yon
bit of cool, gray water, and the pines clustering round, and the wee
green faery isle in the midst--with the bridge holding onto it to
keep it from disappearing entirely--and the sand so white, and the
lawns so green--why, it looked like a Japanese garden set in a great
sedge bowl. Do you wonder I had to come closer and see it better?"

Burgeman said nothing; but the ghost of a feeling showed, the greed
of possession.

"And it all belongs to you. You bought it all--the lake and the woods
and the lawns." It was not a question, but a statement.

"I own three miles in every direction."

"Except that one." Patsy smiled as she pointed a finger upward. "Did
you ever think how generous the blessed Lord is to lend a bit of His
sky to put over the land men buy and fence in and call 'private
property'? It's odd how a body can think he owns something because he
has paid money for it; and yet the things that make it worth the
owning he hasn't paid for at all."

"What do you mean?"

"Would you think much of this place if you couldn't be looking yonder
and watching the clouds scud by, all turning to pink and flame color
and purple as the sun gathers them in? What would you do if no wild
flowers grew for you, or the birds forgot you in the spring and built
their nests and sang for your neighbor instead? And can you hire the
sun to shine by the day, or order the rain by the hogshead?"

Burgeman senior was contemplating her with genuine amazement. "I do
not believe I have ever heard any one put forth such extraordinary
theories before. May I ask if you are a socialist?"

"Bless you, no! I am a very ordinary human being, just; principally
human."

"Do you know who I am?"

For an instant Patsy looked at him without speaking; then she
answered, slowly: "You have told me, haven't you? You are the master
of the place, and you look a mortal lonely one."

"I--am." The words seemed to slip from his lips without his being at
all conscious of having spoken.

"And the money couldn't keep it from you." There was no mockery in
her tone. "'Tis pitifully few comforts you can buy in life, when
all's said and don